President Trump continues to tighten the reigns of executive agencies, this time by issuing two Executive Orders designed to prevent agencies from improperly using guidance documents. Together, these orders reinforce agency adherence to the rule of law and due process and also provide meaningful restraint to regulatory overreach.

Yesterday, President Trump celebrated the 158th judge nominated by him confirmed by the Senate. Here are some statistics:

President Obama appointee Beryl A. Howell cleared the way for House Democrats to further leak and try to politically damage the President when she authorized the release of grand jury materials from the Mueller investigation. This violates one of the fundamental principles of grand juries: that their proceedings must be kept secret.  As Margot Cleveland wrote in the Federalist:

Access to the grand jury materials won’t transform the House’s proceedings into a “full and fair impeachment inquiry”—it will just give the Democrats more information to selectively leak to the press. . . .

[T]here’s no need to look beyond the closed doors of the committees to conclude that the Democrats aren’t requesting the grand jury materials to avoid an injustice—but to avoid a reelection.

Today, the Supreme Court vacated the lower court's decision in Chatfield v. League of Women Voters (League of Women Voters v. Benson below) and remanded for further consideration in light of Rucho v. Common Cause.  There was nothing unexpected or even very newsworthy in this, but what is newsworthy is the hand-wringing among Democrats and in the mainstream media.  The misleading headlines and stories that gave the impression that the Supreme Court had ruled in favor of Michigan Republicans.

As we celebrate Constitution Day today, it is worth remembering that the Founders carefully wrote the Constitution to ensure that our third branch of government was independent through mechanisms such as life tenure, the prohibition against diminution of salary, and the nomination and confirmation mechanism itself, and that judicial independence is what preserves the Constitution and our system of government.  

Yet many liberals now want to undermine the independence of the judiciary because judges do not always reach the outcomes they desire to advance their progressive policy goals.  

Or perhaps more accurately, they are attempting to redefine judicial independence to mean a judiciary that advances progressive policy goals and interests.  

The Democrats of the 2010s have become the Party that refuses to respect results or the rule of law.  While the most obvious example is their continuing efforts to undermine elections, the most recent example, and most troubling to those who practice law, may be the recent threats of Senate Democrats to the courts.  As we wrote last week, Senator Whitehouse threatened the Supreme Court in an unprecedented amicus brief.  Today, Senate Republicans responded.

For years liberals have used the courts to get what they could not get from voters, the President or Congress.  President Trump and Senators like Mitch McConnell, Chuck Grassley and Lindsey Graham are doing a great job of nominating and confirming judges that respect the rule of law and not liberals' political wishes.  So now liberal politicians are taking to threatening the courts to get what they want.  As the Wall Street Journal opined last week:

Last week Attorney General Bill Barr announced that the Department of Justice would resume enforcing the law regarding the federal death penalty.  As Fox News reported:

The Supreme Court issued two opinions with direct implications for redistricting this morning, on the last day of the October 2018 Term.  In a consolidated opinion for Rucho v. Common Cause and Lamone v. Benisek, the Court held that "partisan gerrymandering claims present political questions beyond the reach of the federal courts."  In Department of Commerce v. New York, the Court remanded the "census" case to the district court for further proceedings consistent with its rather confusing opinion that held both that it would be permissible for the the Department of Commerce to ask a question regarding citizenship on the census and that the Department did not provide an accurate reason for the question's inclusion.

Today, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Rucho v. Common Cause, a partisan gerrymandering claim against North Carolina's congressional map, and Lamone v. Benisek, a First Amendment retaliation partisan gerrymandering claim against one Maryland state legislative district.  Both cases were before the Court last term and were sent back to the district courts for further proceedings.  As in the past, today the justices continued to search for a justiciably manageable standard for considering partisan gerrymandering claims: